Thursday, 13 October 2016

2. The First 5 Days in the Second Life of Mangrovejane Part 2

I am a real life artist who has never dealt with digital art. I have never even used photoshop. I really like the feeling of a pen scratching over paper or the physical aspects of putting together a large installation. So WHY Second Life I hear you asking. Well...I was exploring the nature of reality and playing with the idea of virtualities and virtual worlds as platforms for Art and Second Life came up the most in the articles I was reading. There are other places...Inworldz,and IMVU for instance, but I didn't just want a social platform (which is what IMVU appears to be) and Inworldz at the moment does not compete population wise. Even though Second Life has been around for 13 years now, it has kept up and still holds a decent population base. (For a more thorough history and timeline check out Daniel Voyager's Blog post Recap of Second Life History 1999 to 2013 or The History of Second Life Wiki)And because I couldn't really wrap my head around what a virtual installation would look like or how a simulation like Second life actually functioned in a cultural, creative, philosophical and economic sense,I read some more about it, asked some people....and here I am at...

Day 2. The Social Factor. With all the bad press about the sexual
exploits of Second Life and the sordid tales of my teenage son telling me all
about sexual practices I would rather have not known about at all ringing
loudly in my ears the very first interaction I had with someone as I stood in a
beginners area called Caledon went something like this...

Random Lovely Person: Hi!

Me:(hesitates for a very long time before cautiously typing) Hi

Random Lovely Person: I see you are new. Can I help you with
anything?

Random Lovely person: OK. Well if you need anything at all, let me
know. I am here to help.

U-huh. I was just
congratulating myself on getting through my first social exchange without being
recruited as a sex slave in a BDSM parlour and reading through the tutorials on
how to change my clothes when the next thing I knew I was naked. Not just a
little bit naked...but naked as the day I was born naked.

Now, just to make this
obvious for those of you who have never been here before, some zones in Second
Life are strictly NO NUDITY ZONES. I
was clearly in one of those zones. There
were large signs everywhere telling people to keep their clothes on. There were also signs telling vampires not to
bite people too but that is by the by....I could feel the blush on my real life
face. I frantically rattled through my inventory searching for clothes to throw
on while simultaneously trying to read the signs telling me how to put clothes
on when this exchange happened...

Another random lovely person:
Hi there. Is there any way I can help you today?

Me:Errrmmmm ummmmmmmm I appear to be naked. I am terribly sorry
for my unclothed state. I am trying to put clothes on. Please don’t throw me
out naked into the world. I was just trying to change my clothes as per the
instructions on your board and....well....nakedness.

Another random lovely
person: Yes, You do in fact appear to
have no clothes on. Would you like to hop into a dressing room? It is more
private there.

Me: I don’t know what they
look like but I think I know how to put a shirt on....(fumbles around the
settings a whole lot and manages to take off my skin)

Another random lovely person:
No worries...Let me help you....

And that lovely person
gave me quick step by step instructions on how to put my clothes back on. After
which I thanked him very nicely and left very quickly.